Caution: This post contains SPOILERS from The Hunting Party Season 2 Episode 5, titled “Noah Cyrus.”
After a break for the Winter Olympics, The Hunting Party Season 2 Episode 5 is here, and it’s time to dive into the hunt for Noah Cyrus. It’s the episode we’ve all been waiting for, with Kelsey Grammer guest-starring as the cult leader.
This has been one of those episodes we’ve all looked forward to. Grammer usually plays the protagonist, and while he’s not always the best of guys in the world, he means well, and he doesn’t go out to maliciously hurt people.
That’s not the case on The Hunting Party Season 2 Episode 5, and he quickly steps into that dark role. There’s no mistaking him for the bad guy, but at the same time, he’s rather charming. It’s easy to see how he is a cult leader.
The Horrors of Illegal Torture on The Hunting Party Season 2 Episode 5
The episode opens, as usual, with Grammer’s character, Noah Cyrus, getting caught in the past. We then get a look at a treatment that he went through. In this case, it’s being thrown into a white room. And this is supernaturally white, designed to remove all the senses.
It echoes, and it’s hard to see where the walls are. It’s bright and alarming, and it’s no wonder that Noah immediately curls up into a ball. There’s panic running through him as he realizes that he is trapped.
This is where he will stay. We later find that this became his cell, which makes it all the more horrific, and it continues to bring up a question that The Hunting Party keeps asking. Should these criminals have any rights at all, or is it right to strip them of everything?
What’s happened to Noah is illegal torture, and when Bex, Hassani, and Shane eventually find a space just like it, they can understand why. It leaves them feeling insane, and now they can understand everything that Noah is feeling. Well, maybe not quite everything, but it’s enough to feel that sense of despair.
The series continues to bring up the question of the torturous “treatments” that these serial killers go through. Was it right of The Pit? The problem is that it’s always going to be up for debate. If you’ve done horrendous and evil things, do you deserve any sympathy at all? Isn’t the empathy and the sympathy what make us human? If you take away that, does it make us any better than the criminals?
It’s a topic that will always come up for debate, but The Hunting Party takes it one step further during this episode. After all, not only does Noah deal with the torture himself, but he also puts people through it.
Bex questions how new people have been indoctrinated into his cult so quickly after he managed to escape, and it’s clear that Noah puts new people into a white room. He forces them to go through everything he did, making him a savior for them. Of course, that leads to them following his every word.
A Threat at the Command Center on The Hunting Party
Usually, the focus is on Bex and the team out in the field. They’re the ones who are constantly put in harm’s way, but that’s not the case during this episode.
As Bex realizes that there is a leak inside the Command Center, it’s soon clear that they should be far more worried about that leak than they initially are. This isn’t just about getting information out, but about getting something in.
Of course, Peck is a suspect by many of us, but we know deep down that he’s a man working with Lazarus. Whatever that task is, he needs to keep the Command Center up and running, and he needs to keep the mission as secretive as possible. He’s not going to help Noah.
Ben becomes another suspect, and that’s understandable. We’ve only just come to know him, but it’s far too obvious. In the end, it’s not too hard to figure out that it’s Norm, and Morales gets there just as Norm brings the threat to them.
He has a bomb, and this is going to bring the entire Command Center to the ground. With all this, Noah shows just how smart and manipulative he is. He’s able to figure out who is trying to lock him back away.
Fortunately, the Command Center is packed with skilled military personnel. Did we really think that they would be at real risk? If this were the end of The Hunting Party Season 2, I’d say maybe. Blowing up the Command Center to end the season would most definitely be a way to leave us on a shocking cliffhanger. At this point in the season, though, I just didn’t buy it.
However, getting to see Morales be the one to overpower Norm was perfect for the story. She is a badass, and we get to see her in action within the Command Center. It’s not often that we get to see her fighting skills, and the best thing is that she doesn’t put up much of a fight here, really highlighting how good she is at her job.
In the end, everything goes back to the way it was. The serial killer is captured — and I love that this is the way Bex and her team continued to operate, rather than just killing — and the Command Center is safe.
However, there are a couple of threads that remain open.
One of those is Shane, who has decided that he doesn’t need to know who his mother is. Bex decides not to tell him the truth, despite now Morales and Hassani knowing, and I do think that’s unfair. While Shane says that he doesn’t need to know, it’s because he doesn’t think anyone can find out for him. He’s trying to make peace with it, but there’s no need to.
This feels like it’s drama for the sake of creating drama. The best element that The Hunting Party has is Shane learning the truth and figuring out what to do with that information, and it is dragging that at this point.
He does need to know, especially since others close to him do. How betrayed will he feel when he finds out the full truth? That’s not the trust this team has built up.
The other remaining thread is the question about who took out Noah Cyrus. After being captured, someone manages to find out where he is and kill him in the back of the van.
This can realistically only be Lazarus, but why would she want to do something like this? Doesn’t she want to get people back into The Pit, or is this part of her cleaning up messes as her own secret slowly starts to come out?
The Hunting Party Season 2 airs on Thursdays at 10/9c on NBC. I’ll be covering it regularly right here, so come back for more!
